


Don't Look The Other Way While I'm Looking At You

by firequakes



Category: MBLAQ, T-Ara
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Finding the Right Timing, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-12
Updated: 2011-06-12
Packaged: 2019-07-06 08:48:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15882648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firequakes/pseuds/firequakes
Summary: Sometimes, it's just hard to get the timing right.





	Don't Look The Other Way While I'm Looking At You

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this](https://weheartit.com/entry/4007675). originally posted @ livejournal.

He sees a woman across the street, wearing a chic blazer over a short dress with black stockings, and sharp looking high heels. Seungho squints a little, and realises she reminds him of someone he used to know.  
  
  
——  
  
  
  
They're sixteen, and it's a month into their first year of senior high school, when they go out on a date. It's a double actually, because they both just get dragged along by their friends who were desperate to go out together, but who also wanted to make sure things weren't awkward.  
  
Soyeon had been easy, excited, and enthusiastic. "Who is he bringing along?" was the only question she had asked her friend, and the only answer she had gotten was a shrug, along with "Seungho, I think. He's cute, right? Shouldn't be that bad."  
  
Seungho had been a little more apprehensive and uninterested. "Can't you take someone else along?" had been his first answer after he got invited, but he had owed that particular friend, so in the end he had allowed himself to be dragged along.  
  
Their friends had taken them to an amusement park, and then left them all alone by the entrance, and wow, so much for things being not awkward.  
  
They ride the roller coaster, and Soyeon screams her heart out, and she almost reaches out for Seungho's hand, but he's too busy gripping the handle. Soyeon notes that he's holding on so tightly that his knuckles have already turned white.  
  
"You know, screaming makes it all the more fun," she remarks with a grin after they get off the ride.  
  
He just nods at her absent-mindedly, which makes her frown. She wants to make a crack about his being distant, but she shuts up for the time being and drags him to the arcade instead. She watches him play the games closely, and watches as he loses everything because he doesn't even look like he wants to try.  
  
"Okay, stop," she says finally, a little annoyed. "Do you even want to be here?"  
  
He looks at her directly, and he looks genuinely apologetic when he sighs and admits, "Not really."  
  
"Why are you here then?" Soyeon asks.  
  
"Yongshin asked nicely," Seungho says, a tiny laugh escaping his lips, as if he just said an inside joke.  
  
Soyeon rolls her eyes, "I'm here for the same reason. Yeseul made me. Now please tell me you don't think I'm here because I have a  _crush_  on you."  
  
"Well," Seungho laughs sheepishly. "Maybe."  
  
"You're such an ass," Soyeon snorts. "I'm telling all the girls at school you're not really as perfect as they all think you are."  
  
"I never said I was perfect," Seungho laughs.  
  
"Well they all think you are," Soyeon answers, sticking her tongue out at him.  
  
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have acted like I did," Seungho apologises.  
  
Soyeon laughs. "The thing is, even if I  _did_  like you, there's no way you and would have ever worked out. We'd be a disaster together."  
  
Seungho laughs, and nods. "I guess so," he agrees.  
  
"Okay good," Soyeon says, grabbing Seungho's arm. "Maybe now we can actually enjoy the day."  
  
  
  
  
The thing is, at school, they actually get along very well. Seungho is the class representative, and Soyeon is the class secretary he relies on pretty heavily. Their friends break up after 80 days, but after the date from hell, Seungho and Soyeon only get closer.  
  
  
  
  
Soyeon falls in love right before that school year ends.  
  
She meets the boy at a convenience store, where he works part time. Soyeon comes in one day, and starts going off at him about  _how come this magazine costs 100 Won more here than at the store two blocks from here_. Her arms are folded, and her expression very serious as her mouth goes on non-stop. He just laughs in return, and playfully apologises.   
  
"It's not like I have control over pricing items," he says with an amused expression, and Soyeon had just sighed, knowing very well he was telling the truth.  
  
"Sorry," she says. "Money's a bitch to come by these days."  
  
"It's okay," he shrugs, and the he asks her for a little bit of time because his break is coming up in ten minutes, and spending it alone would be boring.  
  
He's only half a head taller than Soyeon, and the first time they kiss, Soyeon barely has to tiptoe to reach his mouth. She tastes strawberry milk and nicotine on his lips, and it's a combination she never thought would be good together right until that very moment.  
  
  
  
  
While Soyeon spends the summer with the boy she thinks could mean  _forever_  for her (whatever forever means for a sixteen year old anyway), Seungho spends it with his friends, mostly in PC bangs, playing Starcraft or looking up on the internet new gadgets coming out in the next few months.  
  
He goes out with a girl one of his friends set him up with, and it lasts for a total of four dates until they both individually decide it's not really worth it, it's not really going anywhere, so they stop contacting each other.  
  
And so, when the new school year opens, Seungho remains unchanged while Soyeon's heart is broken.  
  
He catches her alone within the first week of school, quiet and staring at nothing in particular. He sits next to her without saying anything, waiting for Soyeon to break the silence herself.  
  
"What do you need?" Soyeon finally asks, after ten minutes of just sitting next to each other.  
  
Seungho shrugs. "You haven't seemed like yourself recently."  
  
Soyeon stares at him, her forehead wrinkling.  
  
"You  _do_  know that while everybody expects me to lead, they all know  _you're_  the one who makes things fun."  
  
It's Soyeon's turn to shrug.  
  
"Whatever it is, the world hasn't ended," Seungho tells her, sounding very matter-of-fact.  
  
"What's  _that_  supposed to mean?" Soyeon snorts.  
  
Seungho laughs. "It means you should smile again."  
  
He hands her a can of iced coffee before standing up, and Soyeon couldn't help the tiny smile that forms on her face as she watches him walk away.  
  
  
  
  
"He left me to chase after his dreams," is how she explains things to Seungho when she's ready to finally talk about the break-up.  
  
"He's a dick," Seungho tells her, so quick, and so simply that it makes her laugh.  
  
"Aw come on, you'd do the same," Soyeon points.  
  
Seungho shrugs. "I'm a dick too. All guys are," he says.  
  
"You're so brutally honest," Soyeon says, laughing. "I like that about you."  
  
  
  
  
One time Soyeon misses a few days of school because of a cold, and Seungho, along with a couple more of their friends drop by her house to see how she's doing and to drop by school work she's missed.  
  
"We missed you today," Seungho tells her with a teasing grin.  
  
"Yeah, you look like you weren't able to sleep just thinking about me," Soyeon retorts with a laugh. "Those circles under your eyes look darker. Sags more too."  
  
"You must be feeling better if you can say shit like that now," Seungho says, playfully throwing a pillow at her.  
  
After they leave, Soyeon's mother teases her about Seungho in particular.   
  
"He seems like a nice boy," she says, a slightly mischievous glint in her eyes. "Isn't he the class leader? The other mothers are always talking about him during parent-teacher meetings."  
  
Soyeon just rolls her eyes and deflects all the barbs, but he creeps into her dreams that night anyway.  
  
When Soyeon sees Seungho at school the next day, her breath hitches involuntarily and she realises she just might be falling in love with him.  
  
  
  
  
It doesn't change anything. It can't, because he's Seungho, and she's Soyeon, and she was among the first people he had told just a week earlier about the girl he's started to date.  
  
The girl is one year younger than them, and Seungho's junior in the computer club. She's tall, and slender, and extremely leggy— her physique is everything Soyeon's isn't. All the guys takes a jab at Seungho for "bagging" the "sexy chick," but Seungho just laughs it all off, and stays silent about the relationship.  
  
Except with Soyeon anyway. Her, he tells almost everything.  
  
"Even with your mouth that never seems to shut up, it just feels like I can trust you," is his reasoning.  
  
The day Seungho admits to losing his virginity to his girlfriend is the day that Soyeon decides it's time to move on.  
  
  
  
–  
  
  
  
Seungho isn't sure what being in love is exactly, but he is starting to wonder if maybe this is it.  
  
He thinks his girlfriend is near perfection, and that scares him a little. She's the one who had approached him first, armed with coy smiles and flirtatious hair flips, and he hadn't exactly bought it at first, but she had been persistent, until one day he just realised— he kind of really liked her.  
  
She's pretty, and funny, and especially sweet when it's just the two of them, and for some reason Seungho has just reached a point where, like already mentioned, he thinks she's near perfection.  
  
He actually starts making an effort planning dates; starts being affectionate in many tiny ways.  
  
"I feel like this is the first time you've actually  _tried_  with a girl," Soyeon teases him one time. "Which is kind of funny considering you barely had to do anything to get he to be your girlfriend."  
  
"You make it sound bad when you say it like that," Seungho says, giving her a  _look_ , which she just deflects with a laugh.  
  
"Oh God, I didn't mean it like  _that_ ," she says, grinning. "To be honest I feel kind of proud of you. Like you've grown up or something."  
  
Seungho just eyes her for a second before giving her a playful shove. Soyeon just laughs again.  
  
  
  
  
For their 100th day celebration, he takes her to the amusement park ("and remember to hold her hand during rides, especially on the roller coaster," Soyeon had reminded him), and gives her lilies ("because roses are so  _ordinary_ ," Soyeon had advised).  
  
The first half of the days goes great, and he even manages to win a toy or two for her at the arcade games. And then he accidentally lets it slip just how much Soyeon had to do with planning the day and,  
  
"Did she choose that shirt too?" his girlfriend asks, a little icily, and Seungho just shuts up because Soyeon kind of  _had_  helped picked it out.  
  
He spends the rest of the afternoon being apologetic and trying to win her apology but it doesn't really work (or, well, he doesn't really wear her down) until he takes her home at the end of the night.  
  
"I love you," she says, and she kind of looks tired from being pissed off at him for half the day, but she also looks like she really meant what she said.  
  
"I," and then Seungho chokes a little on his saliva. "I do too."  
  
There aren't any fireworks, but during that brief moment Seungho feels like he had told the truth. He never lies after all.  
  
  
  
  
Seungho drifts apart from Soyeon for a little while after that. He hangs out with his girlfriend, and his guy friends, while she hangs out with her female friends, and goes out on a date or two with some guy friends.  
  
"Hey it feels like we haven't talked since forever," Seungho remarks one time when they get paired up for after school clean-up duty. "We should go out and eat after this."  
  
Soyeon laughs, and just changes the topic. They both know it's an empty invitation; his girlfriend is already waiting for him by the school gates after all.  
  
  
  
  
They break up at the end of the school year.  
  
Her eyes are misty when she tells him her family is migrating to Canada, but he stays expressionless the entire time.  
  
"I will miss you," Seungho says, and she breaks down crying. He puts his arms around her, and tries to comfort her, but he doesn't say anything more, and he kind of feels like shit inside because he had already felt like they had been approaching the end as early as a month beforehand.  
  
  
  
  
He stops missing his ex-girlfriend after a week, and stops thinking of her altogether after a month. After a week more, he remembers her briefly and he wonders how in love he really was with her if it is this easy to get over her.  
  
"It's a defense mechanism," Soyeon tells him— they're back to spending a lot of time together.  
  
Seungho shrugs, and Soyeon smiles at him comfortingly, but deep inside he knows that Soyeon is wrong. He really  _is_  over her.  
  
  
  
  
The last year of high school flies by quickly, and before they know it they're taking graduation photos with huge smiles on their faces.  
  
"I will miss all of you," Soyeon gushes.  
  
She's also the one who starts a group hug, which Seungho would normally think awkward, but hey it's graduation, and hey his best friend wants it, so he joins in.  
  
Soyeon moves away afterwards. She goes off to a university in another city to major in broadcasting, while Seungho stays and goes to a local university and studies computer engineering. They keep in contact through e-mails, some mass sent to all of their friends, and some exchanges just between the two of them.   
  
It isn't really the same.  
  
He misses her a lot, and one day, Seungho just starts feeling strangely hurt, and mildly depressed, and like there's massive, gaping hole in his chest. For a while he doesn't understand why, until one day he starts asking himself if he's been in love with Soyeon all along and he just didn't know it.  
  
  
  
  
His mother sometimes asks about Soyeon (and sometimes about the rest of his high school friends as well). It saddens him a little that most of the time the only answer he can give is a shoulder shrug, but it's not like the world stops spinning because of it.   
  
Life goes on, and Seungho moves on.  
  
  
  
——  
  
  
There's someone tapping on her shoulder and when she looks around, it's a familiar face— the same dark circles under his eyes, and the same stoic expression.  
  
"Hey," he greets. "Remember me?"  
  
She laughs, how could she not?  
  
"You know, Seungho, you can at least look happier when greeting an old friend," Soyeon says, a big, enthusiastic smile forming on her own face.  
  
  
  
  
//


End file.
